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The Renewal of the US Nuclear Arsenal

The U.S. nuclear weapons complex is greatly expanding (Oct. 2014) the production of fissile cores to levels not seen since the end of the Cold War three decades ago. The dramatic increase comes as part of a long-term billion-dollar effort to renew the nuclear arsenal under President Barack Obama,…[T]the Department of Energy, which oversees the nuclear weapons laboratories, is planning to produce 80 explosive plutonium cores—the key to every warhead—a year by 2030, according to The Guardian…Over the next decade, the federal government plans to spend $355 billion modernizing the nuclear arsenal even though there are 15,000 cores in reserve in a Texas facility…

Plans to expand nuclear weapons production come at a time when the Energy Department is still recovering from a significant accident earlier this year at the nation’s only repository for nuclear weapons waste. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has been closed since February, when a drum of radioactive waste exploded and exposed 22 workers to radiation.